Wake Up and Smell the Cake

Raya's coming! And the Raya Grinch is back! Seriously. I can't remember the last time I was sooo looking forward to Hari Raya. I look forward only to food and yummy cakes and kuih which I will eat at one corner sitting quietly by myself hurhur. But this time round I'll have an 11.7kg toddler to handle. I do hope he won't be so cranky. Anyway! Here's what I've been up to lately. Took Friday off so that I could have the four day long holiday dedicated for baking. Thursday was pineapple tarts at my mum's cos there is no way I'm gonna do tarts on my own with a baby to handle. We managed to make two batches for my mum's household and mine. Friday and Saturday was spent on Almond London, for three households. This, I did on my own and I literally spent the entire day on them cos every half an hour or so Junior wants my attention. I managed to get him to sit quietly for a bit, but as expected no one activity lasts more than 10 minutes, so he was off aga

Husband's home YAY!! But he was kinda knocked out from exhaustion and got sick too, and so I did lotsa cleaning over the weekend. Junior is glad to have his daddy back, he's such a happy boy :) My Sundays are back i.e. the usual sneaking-in-a-bake in the morning while Husband is asleep hehe. Made a welcome home cake for Husband! Also an excuse to try my new heritage bundt pan, my one true love in the baking pan world. Just look at it! It is just. Gorgeous . Totally worth the $52 I splurged. If I have a daughter I'll pass it down to her. HAHA. I wanted to make the fool-proof confirm Husband-approved butter cake, but I couldn't resist not making any changes so I decided to mix around a bit, used my pandan essence to make pandan marble cake. I added a bit of green colouring but it was too little, should have added more. The marbling effect isn't obvious. The pandan taste wasn't overpowering, just a hint of pandan. I think it would be better if the pandan batt

Finally I can sit down. It's not always that I have non-stop meetings but kinda like it when I do.   Managed to bake twice last weekend! Still have yet to use my cream cheese frosting but since it's sitting prettily in my ice cream tub in the freezer, I shan't disturb it yet. Anyway I have more pressing food items to clear such as my looooonnnggg overdue bread and overripe bananas. Hence I made bread pudding on Friday morning and banana chocolate chip muffins on Saturday. Before you freak out at the looonnngg overdue (read: 1 month old) bread, let me share a good tip for small households where bread doesn't run out that fast. I'm more of a cereal person. Whenever I buy bread, I keep it in the fridge. Lasts about a month or even more! It won't go dry, if it does, just heat it for 20 seconds in the microwave and it's soft like it was just baked this morning. And if you didn't manage to finish the rest of the loaf, fret not! Bread pudding always works!

Birthday celebrations are never one day affairs these days. We started off with the Battleship movie which I totally was against watching previously, but because it's the boy's birthday, I reluctantly agreed. And I loved it! The plot was kinda normal bang boosh shoot shoot stuff, but there's humour and I especially like the Jap guy who was made co-captain! His ideas are awesome. Oh! And the part where the navy veterans helped out too! Enjoyed the entire two hours haha! Birthday boy gave me that "see I told you it's good" look when the movie ended. Heh. Fine fine I'll join u in such movies again next time haha. Saturday, I planned for a morning picnic at Botanic Gardens and a visit to the farmers' market for some yummy cupcakes but it rained the entire morning so we had to change plan: lazed around at home for a bit and then off to the market to get ingredients for big feast (birthday boy's request). The rain subsided in the later part of the m

Yes it is! Husband tasted it after coming home from a prior engagement late last night. And yes he likes it! He loves plain simple cakes like this. He approves of the lemon flavour too! I guess it kills the eggy taste and makes the cake less muak or jelak. Which is a bad thing though cos that would mean I can't stop eating it hahaha. Junior has been extra clingy and needy. Like yesterday he lovingly rested his head on Husband's chest and just stayed there. And last night! Omg Juniorrrrr why must you be so fussy! Mama doesn't know what you want! He woke us up at 1+ and I finally got him to sleep 2 painful hours later. And then he did it again at 5! But that lasted 1 hour. Not too bad. For a moment he didn't want direct feeding! I panicked okay! I didn't want that incident at Langkawi to happen again! But thankfully that's over. Phew. Family day today! That is, after Husband finishes his work. Make it family half-a-day today. I have work to do too but a little

This is my first ever lemon cake. There are lots of recipes using lemon zest, but I always skipped that little bit of adding lemon zest. But yesterday while I was killing time at Paragon and hoping to get some atas ingredients, I decided to get lemons. It's time to add some zest into my butter cakes! I bought vanilla pods as well but I don't have the courage to use that yet. Can I just add that Paragon Market Place is so expensive!! Why should I buy flour and sugar there when it costs more? Practically everything costs more! Even the items labeled "manager's choice" are still more expensive than the neighbourhood supermarkets. Back to the cake! It's just the lemon bundt cake. I decided not to make lemon glaze because one, I'm lazy and two, Husband will not bother to eat the cake with a fruity glaze. I adapted a recipe from the trusty allrecipes.com because I didn't have lemon oil. But I still got a soft, fluffy and lightly citrusy cake! The lemo

My gorgeous marble bundt cake. LOVES!! Tastes much better the next day! Yumyum :) This is my first time trying my bundt cake pan! Decided to make marble cake cos anything "weird" and Husband won't eat it. I'll try other flavours next time. This recipe is from The Eccentric Cook . Finally I found time and energy to bake yesterday. Junior decided to have a long nap (two and a half hours!) thankfully! He's still not used to hearing the mixer and blender sounds. He cries almost every time. I decided to make this cake using the mixer, but initially when I creamed the butter with sugar, I mixed by hand instead cos it seems like the butter wasn't creaming fast enough. Maybe I need to use a higher speed? Still not used to it. Haha. And this cake is quite tedious compared to the hassle-free butter cakes which I'm used to. Maybe because I kept switching from mixer mode to manual mixing with ladle.  Ingredients 2 1/2 cups sugar - divided 1/2 cup unsweetene

I know I still have yet to blog about Langkawi, maybe sometime over the weekend. Here's a simple post for today, what I did over the weekend. LOTS of cleaning but still lots more to go, and a bit of shopping ;) My baking splurge for Sunday! Baking chocolate, my cook's measure (finally!), pandan paste, gelatine (got the halal nod from Husband hurhur), roti kirai mould and kuih bakar mould. Contemplated on getting vanilla pods but I resisted. Kuih bakar mould, heavy and rough material. Bought this upon Husband's request. He loved his grandma's kuih bakar which she cooked over the stove with something like this, so I'm on a mission to replicate it! :) There's a heavier mould, made of brass and is $55 but I think I'll try this out first. Fishing out the clothes that Junior can't fit anymore. The drawer was getting too messy. Junior's old shoes. Who says guys can't have many shoes as well?? Hahahaha. And here's my little angel with

Last day of my week's leave yesterday, and since there wasn't much in the fridge/ larder, I decided to make bread pudding for breakfast. BUT. Husband didn't want bread pudding for breakfast. He says it's dessert. Ah well. Same recipe as before , only this time I used a loaf pan instead of my 9 inch square pan and I used sliced white bread, about 8 pieces? I could fit all the liquid in the pan yay! Baked in 25 minutes. Easy peasy :) Forgot to include raisins though! So as a last minute desperate attempt, sprinkled them on top. Haha! Was delighted that I could get the crunchy crust by using normal sliced white bread, I thought I could get that only with french loaf. Can't wait to eat it again tonight!

No particular occasion, but I made pineapple tarts!! Heehee. I forgot how much salt to put, so I just made a guess and it didn't have a salty taste. Could do with a bit more salt. But better to be unsalty than salty! Yesterday was a mad dash. By the time I could start baking, it was almost 3pm. I quickly mixed the ingredients and cleaned up along the way, and started cutting out the cookie shapes. I didn't have enough pans to make all pineapple tarts at one go, had to reuse my big circular tin. That sorta delayed the process. But I was done by 6.30pm! Was amazed at my speed. And with my eagerness to fill the tarts with loads of pineapple paste, I realised halfway that there wasn't gonna be enough. Haha! Hence the last few pieces had a leveled filling only, no heap. I love my pineapple tarts. I know I know I'm not shy about it. Haha! But most importantly, Husband loves it :)

On half day = baking opportunity! :) I've already planned to make bread pudding with the leftover French loaf. While Husband went out to get breakfast, I quickly whipped up bread pudding and by the time Husband got home, pudding was already in the oven, all utensils and bowls washed. Like it never happened :D Amazed with my speed! Haha! I wanted to try my own bread pudding recipe, and with a general idea of the ingredients from allrecipes.com , I made my own. Ingredients Half a loaf of French loaf, about 15cm long 2 tbsp butter 2 cups milk 1/2 cup brown sugar 5 tbsp condensed milk 3 eggs 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 small box of SunMaid raisins Tear bread into 2 inch squares and put in baking pan. I used 9 inch cos I didn't have a slightly smaller one. But I recommend using a smaller pan. Whisk butter, milk, sugar, condensed milk and vanilla essence in a bowl. I heated the bowl using double boiling method cos I wanted the butter to melt. Before adding in eggs, cool t

So yesterday night I got bakin'! I really really wanted to try my new mini loaf pan . It is perfect! I buttered the sides of the pan, and the cakes could be removed very easily! Love it! I didn't realise it was so pricey, when I was washing the pan then I saw the price tag - $28. T_T I know I know, I bought without checking the price haha. It was a good bake yesterday. I finished my cake flour, finished my sugar, and there are points for improvement. While I was preparing the ingredients, I realised I was short of sugar. The horror !! The recipe called for 1 and 3/4 cups of sugar but I only had half a cup! So I added in half cup condensed milk. And then I realised something, whenever I use condensed milk, I shouldn't have added vanilla essence. Happened before with the Condensed Milk Cheesecake . Gives an overpowering taste. I think if the vanilla was reduced, it would be perfect. Another thing I noticed,I didn't really taste the cheese! Haha! Maybe it's suppos

So today was supposed to be day 3 or 29 but I overslept. Bummer. Junior has been disturbing my sleep a lot lately. He doesn't really sleep in the day, and at night, he can wake up every hour, sometimes a few times in an hour. Long gone are the days I had uninterrupted sleep. Yesterday Other Half wanted to eat lemak cili padi again after my successful lemak cili padi tenggiri attempt . Haha. But he wanted to cook it this time round, so I can attend to our little mister cranky and feed him dinner. I prepared all the ingredients, cut them nicely and put into bowls for him to cook. This time round I added more red chili cos I wanted to finish them and they weren't hot anyway so might as well. And more cili padi too!! Other Half prefers to blend everything, easy peasy. I on the other hand, prefer to tumbuk the chili using batu lesung just like my mum does it. To me the flavours kinda disappear when you blend. Hence more chili? Hahaha. So I let Other Half cook, and he wanted t

So the four day weekend has come and gone. Way to fast! Sadness. Day one was quite fruitful yet packed. Morning I did laundry (I think? I've done laundry waayyyy to many times over the weekend I forgot!) and entertained my chubbycheeks. Afternoon we went to fetch in-laws and had lunch at Sabar Menanti which somehow wasn't that good on that day for some reason, and then sent them somewhere. Then we went Mustafa's which was kinda crowded and then to my mum's house to rot and celebrate Brother's twenty-fifth birthday. Sister made hazelnut cake and yes! She bakes! Hahaha. Hazelnut cake with Smuckers chocolate syrup and crushed roasted hazelnuts. Yumyum. Day two was spent at FFL (YK)'s home, made opera cake and had Indian food for dinner. Husband had a meeting most of the afternoon, bummer. I didn't really take part in the baking cos I was babysitting, how to babysit and make a cake?! Actually I can, I've been doing it all along but that's at home,

So yesterday we were on half day cos Husband wasn't feeling too well. Went back, and felt like pre-Junior days. Even so, I have become so accustomed to Junior, I kept expecting to hear a baby crying. Hahaha. While Husband was resting... I baked! And did laundry. I can never resist doing laundry when I see the sun shining so brightly. Husband almost forbid me to do laundry, saying I need to rest too since I'm fasting, but in the end he gave in. Teeheehee. I tried Ultimate Chocolate Cake by Angela Nilsen from bbcgoodfood.com. I am on the hunt for awesome chocolate cake recipes! I planned to do the ganache but have yet to do so cos I ran out of chocolates haha. You can refer to the website for the original ingredients, but below is what I actually used (some measurements are different cos I don't have weighing scale and proper measuring instruments). Ingredients: 200g good quality dark chocolate = I used 2 bars of Hershey's (finally finished using them!) one 60% o

Okay I think I shall skip the outstanding posts I mentioned earlier . Getting out of date already. Haha. Suffice to say, making sugar cookies with difficult mould shapes (like Chip & Dale) is frustrating and tedious, and I haven't found the perfect icing recipe yet. That aside!! I is excited to say I've finally (yes, finally!) perfected my banana cake recipe! Heehee. I have no idea why I couldn't get my mum's recipe to work, maybe cos it's a different oven? But it's almost the same model! Oh well. This time I reduced the butter because the last time it was too oily, and the cake could use a bit more flour. I kept the banana the same cos I love having loads of banana in the cake, rather than use banana essence. Here are my lovelies I brought to work. I didn't capture any pictures while I was baking because I wanted to get it in the oven before Junior gets impatient watching me bake. This was taken with my iPhone. Ingredients : 200g butter 9 oz

Hello!! I'm on Medical Leave :D Husband's at work, and Junior's at my mum's house. I'm free to do just about everything! Heh. Morning I sent off Junior, and stuck around for a bit before going to my all time fave Chong Pang to get some stuff and most importantly, threading. I've been putting it off for the longest time! With that done, and toiletries bought, I spent $50. How did I spend that much on so few items! And I've yet to buy rice, kicap and eggs! Anyway. So I went home, fried my french beans to go with my daging masak kicap for lunch, and then washed and hung clothes to dry, and then baked a chocolate cake (recipe later), and vacuumed the house and now I'm taking a break before I start ironing. Did all that when I'm supposed to be resting and slacking around haha. Husband's gonna scold me for not resting hehe! Daging masak kicap was done yesterday, I prepared everything and cooked the meat and off to zzzland I went, while Husband

Once again I did not step out of the house to get groceries. Yes, I'm such a procrastinator, I've been wanting to do it for a week now but everytime I just postpone. Monday's dinner was a result of the procrastination. You see, I've ran out of onions. And I only have a whole chicken in the fridge. So what did I do? Find a recipe where cooking doesn't involve any onions hahaha. Couldn't think of any cos onion is such an essential ingredient. So I thought of cooking with the next most essential ingredient - garlic! And I found this garlic chicken recipe ! I had a tahu kering set and that would be made into a simple soup dish, of which I added too much garlic. Hurhur. Note to self: never EVER use more than three cloves in a soup. It'll just be bitter. Anyway. I tried the chicken recipe and Other Half loves it! Although he only ate one piece -_-" I wasn't confident of the taste, didn't know if he liked it and I know he won't like the

I have 3 bananas and sour cream that are about to go bad/expire, so I went to Google sour cream banana cake, and came across this ! So there IS a recipe for sour cream banana cake haha! Made some adjustments, but sadly I should've increased the amount of sugar instead. And bananas too if I have them. Sadly the banana taste wasn't much, but the cake is really moist! Especially after you leave it after a day. Soft, moist and the taste of banana and butter becomes more distinct! Ingredients 180g salted butter (honestly I don't know how much I used but it's sort of more than half a pack of 250g butter) 3/4 cup caster sugar 3 eggs 2 1/4 cups cake flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp bicarbonate soda 250 light sour cream 3 mashed bananas Generous doze of chocolate chips! Mix everything! Then bake using a 10 inch round pan, 180°C for 40 minutes. Recipe called for 60 minutes but since the cake was already done and oh so sweet smelling, I took it out impatiently! Ma

Made pengat pisang today! Was all prepared, with sago no less! And of course, leftover bananas. My first time attempting this, as usual when my mother does it, I wouldn't pay attention to the method or recipe haha. Anyway when I asked my mum, there wasn't a clear recipe either, all is by estimation. So here's my version! Makes 1 potful. Ingredients 4-6 ripe bananas 150ml coconut milk 2 cups water 1 pandan leaf 1 1/2 inches' block of gula melaka Sugar to taste, if necessary Heat water with coconut milk until well mixed. Tie the pandan leaf into a knot and put in the pot. Chop the gula melaka into smaller pieces so that it'll dissolve easily in the mix. Dissolve the gula melaka. Slice the bananas (not too thin or else they'll break) and put them into the mixture. Add already boiled and washed sago in! That's it! :) Chopped gula melaka! Not that easy to chop :s   End product! Couldn't be bothered to take a proper photo cos I was more w